Essay On Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell, in his national bestseller, Outliers the Story of Success, attempts to redefine the age old formula of success. Gladwell argues that, “there is something profoundly wrong with the way we make sense of success” (Gladwell 18). While avoiding clichés, Outliers successfully redefines the pseudoscience of success into stone cold reality. Gladwell champions his argument by introducing and breaking down his ideas meaningful counterarguments. In an order that does not suggest importance in any way, the first ingredient to the formula is having access to a facility that allows talent to blossom. The second ingredient is the period in time which a talent can be appreciated, and the third is the way in which society accepts ones given

Not even the wealthiest oil tycoon or the sharpest Silicon Valley CEOs are capable of such a number. [To even begin to understand how John Davison Rockefeller amassed his fortune, it is critical to observe the period of time in which Rockefeller was alive.] Rockefeller was twentyfive years old in 1855. He was young, and was surly in his prime. And at the same moment, the world was experiencing the rapid change of industrial growth. The consequences of industrialization would have many branches, but the one that would impact Mr. Rockefeller most, would be the demand for fossil fuel. [Rockefeller monopolized the oil industry the in mid nineteenth century.] It was estimated that his company controlled over ninety percent of all oil in the United States. This feat is surely impressive, but what stands out as less impressive, is the time-period in which he benefited from the oil. The U.S. was heavily industrious in the 1800s, and the large amount of machines, which gave the U.S. its industrial might, consumed fossil fuels, like oil. Rockefeller also benefited from the fact that the U.S. had large, relatively untapped, and unclaimed oil deposits that were ripe for

One's position in society will very likely determine where his talents and opinions end up, and who will listen and act on them. Chris Langan, a polymath and intellect, exemplifies this type of ‘ecology’. Langan’s intellectual resume appears to have no end. During his lifetime, he managed to attain a perfect score on the SAT while sparing time for a cat nap. His IQ clocked in at around two-hundred (this is twice as high as the average) and he has dedicated countless hours of his free time into the study of the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (Gladwell 91-115)